When seeking capital, you must decide how much ownership you want
Think about how hard personal relationships are, add in the beliefs people have about money, throw some gasoline on it and then imagine what it’s like to light a match.
BY ALYSON DUTCH
Money.
It’s a loaded word (pardon the pun), because there are so many beliefs about it:
“Money is the root of all evil.”
“Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“Rich people are greedy.”
We all have thoughts about money that unconsciously lurk in our brains. They are different for every human—and they are all based on our past experiences, scars, fears.
The beliefs listed above are ridiculous. Money is not a thing with a personality that is “good” or “bad,” it’s simply an energy and our current system of exchange.
Based on my POM Principle (P for product, O for operations and M for marketing), money is a very important part of your operations. You need money to run a business, and some businesses that are more capital intensive than others.
This is a primer on your choices.
Bootstrapping v. financing
How to choose? Do you go after money first so you can hire who you want, build an office and have money for prototypes, manufacturing and marketing? Could you sell your services with your own investment in a minimum infrastructure and market slowly until it builds?
Your choices depend on:
Personally, I would rather use my own credit, seek money from a bank and retain 100 percent control. As wonderful as partners may appear on the surface, it’s very hard to share the creation and growth of a business with another human.
Think about how hard personal relationships are, add in the beliefs people have about money, throw some gasoline on it and then imagine what it’s like to light a match.
The easiest route is a bank with which you already have a relationship. For a small business, I cannot stress enough the importance of this.
When you can pick up the phone and say: “Hey, I need your help, or I need 24 hours for a deposit to get through the gateway and other checks are out there about to hit my account,” amazing things can happen. I’ve met bankers who spent hours with me, teaching me things that I cherish.
Bank loans are usually the cheapest and have less strings attached. Sometimes you can find revolving credit lines or factors who will provide upfront cash based on invoices you’ve procured.
The Small Business Association does loans; just call your local SBA office.
I also love credit unions. They are very small and personal.
Grants and other means
Another consideration: grants.
At Consumer Product Events, we just started a scholarship grant for kids who are in entrepreneurship programs in U.S. universities as part of a new award program called Consumer Product Marketing Awards. Because we are giving the money, we can dictate how it is used and where it goes. There are grants out there in every industry, for every type of ethnicity and lots of other reasons; go find them!
Friends and family are always a great resource because they believe in you. The tough part is how those relationships may be affected if your venture fails.
Make sure you treat this money as you would any other legal arrangement and have agreements in place. They should include clauses on risk and how you agree to failure. Contracts are made for “when” and “if,” not when everyone is feeling good about things. Use them.
If your credit is bad, there are options—albeit very expensive. There are lots of “hard money lenders” out there. Some are big companies such as OnDeck and other private groups with cash that just want a huge return. Their terms might be as high as 12 percent to 30 percent, and they require repayment on a daily or weekly basis in auto debits.
For some businesses, these companies serve as a bridge loan and can usually be done quickly. We love a company called Fora Financial.
Crowdfunding on sites such as GoFundMe, Kickstarter or Indiegogo is a unique animal you might choose for lots of reasons—other than a place to find money. It’s good for search engine optimization; you may even choose to use it as a selling platform or a place to test your product to find early adopters and get opinions.
You may raise a few bucks, but don’t expect this to be a sole manner of fundraising. It’s a small-potato universe.
Most companies start with “friends and family rounds.” Sometimes this is called “seed funding” or “angel investment”: The amount you ask for is based on what your product is, what it costs to make it, get it to market—and spend at least 1-2 years of marketing. That could be from $50,000 to $5 million.
With investors on board, you must use their money for your business—not your rent, dinners, or personal life. There is a very heavy penalty (read: prison) for those who misuse this money.
The next phases
Series A and Series B are the next rounds of tranches that are usually sought after a company has proven viability.
Series A is the second stage of start-up financing and the first stage of venture capital financing. B is a type of equity-based financing, which investors are provided with preferred shares in exchange for their money.
This kind of funding method usually is leading up to a desired IPO—which is the sale of shares that makes it a public company—and of course with that comes loss of control as well, boards of directors and big-boy/girl business time.
The thing about investors is, they invest in people. The only time they keep the entrepreneur onboard is if that person is smarter than the investors.
Entrepreneurs should stay focused on the reason they started: to make money. But first, you need money to make it go.
All things considered that involve the structure of your invention’s business
Choosing a distribution method for your product is a key operational setup that determines how it is sold. The choice is based on your end customers; where do they buy what you have to sell?
BY ALYSON DUTCH
In a concept I introduced in last month’s Launching Pad debut, every business and product is comprised of three parts: product (P), operations (O) and marketing (M). These are the only requirements needed to turn an invention into a business that makes enough money to pay the mortgage and put your kids through college.
I call it the POM Principle—the three pillars needed to create (and sustain) any business. This is a simplified “go-to-market strategy” for any business or product in any industry. You need only the willingness to follow the recipe’s instructions.
Last month, we talked about “P” (product) and what’s needed to bring a product out of a concept and into form. This month, we’ll talk about operations—the structure that makes a business go.
Main components
Because the operational components are different for every business, we’ll discuss the basic ones that every business needs in order to, well, be a business. Some products are services; others are hard goods; others are apps. This applies to all.
One of the most important operational considerations is money. You may have already found the capital to create your product, but now you need the cash to support the running of your business—and even more dough to find customers to buy your product (more on the “M” of marketing next month).
Choosing a distribution method for your product is next, a key operational setup that determines how it is sold. The choice is based on your end customers; where do they buy what you have to sell?
For example, if you have an app product, will you sell it through the App Store or Google Play? Will you put product on a retail shelf somewhere? Will it be at a grocery or markets such as convenience, discount or luxury retailers, maybe duty free in airports? Is your product an original equipment manufacturer part that must be sold to manufacturers? Will you sell something online? Through wholesalers?
How you set up your distribution will then help you determine who will sell it. You might hire a sales team or add your product to a rep’s catalogue. You may choose to sell it through an online affiliate referral program.
And speaking of “affiliates,” don’t get stuck in jargon. Today, “affiliate marketing” is seen as an online method in which unique links are provided to those who send site traffic, and in return a commission is paid. However, an affiliate is any network of people through which you can sell something.
Japanese ecommerce and online retailing company Rakuten and CJ Affiliate (formerly Commission Junction) have plenty of online affiliate options. You might find a network marketing organization like Amway as a distribution point.
I read recently that an entrepreneur started her business using flight attendants who needed extra cash and could take meetings in their off time in cities throughout the country. How brilliant is that?
Building efficient systems
The next important operational aspect is systems.
As an entrepreneur, you are likely what I call a chef/cook/bottlewasher—which means you’re wearing a lot of hats. As you hatched your product into being, no doubt you discovered there are some things you do repeatedly. Now it’s time to create systems that do those things without you and the same, every time, flawlessly.
With my company, some of our most pivotal systems required an autoresponder/database to capture customers and sell to them. Another system was something old-fashioned; we call it the “Everything You Need to Know Memo.”
This document outlines for our event exhibitors all that’s needed to load in to our venue, where to send their exhibits, what to say to visitors, where to stay, how to park, what’s needed to pitch their product to the influencers they’ll meet at our events—even what to wear. Best yet, this memo is automated in an email every time someone is tagged as a customer.
And don’t waste your precious start-up money on hiring a bookkeeper; get QuickBooks for your accounting. It’s a miraculous and cost-effective accounting system.
Regarding income, here’s an important system. Have you thought about how you will you accept money? Will you need a merchant account to take credit cards? Will you use Paypal or Apple Pay? Will you incorporate or be an LLC?
You will need a branding system for the colors, fonts and style in which you communicate so that customers recognize you. If you are a service business like us, you will need systems for emails, structures for proposals, ways that you onboard a client, as well as routine service and accountability methods.
Other operational considerations include manufacturing, legal and hiring/firing.
The people part
People are a huge part of the operations, so putting together an organizational chart with matching job descriptions will puzzle it all together.
Another operational consideration is how you plan to work your team. Offices are going out of style but sometimes very necessary for certain kinds of businesses. If you are making hard goods, you may need warehousing. You have decisions to make about whether you use shared warehousing or buy your own building.
For teams, inspiring leadership is the driving force whether you’re physically together or not, so you should think about how you’ll handle meetings and manage benchmarks.
Have you thought about the culture you want to create? You could have a culture like Virgin that’s youthful and risk-taking, or you could have a buttoned-down, service-oriented culture like the Ritz Carlton. You may wish to have dogs in the office like Chipotle Mexican Grill does or enforce a “no pantyhose zone,” like we do in our sunny and creative Malibu office.
Operations may seem like a boring subject, but I’m hoping that the above outlines why this is the stuff that separates the top companies from the bottom ones.
The companies that skyrocket are the ones that have been planned out and then execute toward a specific goal. They measure along the way with metrics so that progress is measurable. Think like an MBA (even if you’re not one)!
And if this has opened a can of worms that just brings more questions, I’m happy to help.
Follow the POM Principle to help overcome the low odds of getting to market
Whatever got you to where you are now will not be what’s needed to get you where you want to go. You need the right people, tenacity, and adaptability.
BY ALYSON DUTCH
Inventing something is just the beginning.
Getting your product to market, building operational systems and finding customers who will consistently buy your product is what needs to happen next.
During the past 30 years, I’ve worked with thousands of products and inventors. Many of them get stuck in that first phase.
Some remain inventors by choice, creating widget after widget and successfully selling them to companies that do the rest. A very small percentage either do the rest themselves or hire the right people to build out a spark of an idea into something that is needed by a customer—and eventually loved by a customer.
After launching products ranging from grocery store ice cream product extensions for Mrs. Fields Cookies to the first blue-labeled bubbly for champagne Mumm and setting up thinkThin nutrition bars to sell to Glanbia nutrition group for a whopping $217 million, I’ve seen a lot.
Most of all, I’ve worked with many one-person companies—inventors who created bras that eliminate visible bra lines, basketball shoes that prevent ankle sprains, and wrinkle-releasing beauty serums that were born in kitchen sinks. Through it all, it’s easy for me to identify the qualities and reasons products succeed and fail.
3 factors in success
The reasons are the same ones that attract or repel investment.
There are very specific qualities in inventors that I can identify quickly. Some products will get far enough down the field to pay the inventor’s mortgage and get their kids through college, but many will not.
Only 2 percent to 10 percent of all patents make money—a daunting statistic but not insurmountable. The question is, are you willing to rabidly uncover the path to success? And when you do, will you execute on it and are you willing to fail, get up and do it again?
The success quality is rare but doesn’t need to be intrinsic; it can be cultivated.
Anyone with enough desire to do what it takes to get out of his or her comfort zone can be wildly successful. It’s self-evident, but whatever got you to where you are now will not be what’s needed to get you where you want to go.
I’ve seen so many amazing products fail miserably. Ironically, most of them are incredibly innovative and helpful with obvious consumers who would love to buy them. As a matter of fact, I would say that a majority of the most interesting and useful of products are ones that never see the light of day or succumb to a very short life.
Why?
The first factor is the people. Even the greatest products and ideas will not succeed without the right people driving them to market.
The second thing is that success requires super-human tenacity, people who refuse to take no for an answer. The most successful entrepreneurs are unbelievably resourceful; they will create their own PhD without a day in college.
Third, the successful ones are adaptable and never married to their ideas or things changing into something else entirely.
This stands true for inventors who just want to hand off their product to an entity that will develop it and bring it to market. They need to know how to make that happen in a way that pays them for their intellectual property in intelligent ways.
If they are not the one to take it to market, they must have the good sense to step out of the picture yet make a deal that is deserving of their creation while providing the freedom for life-giving breath.
The other kind of inventors create with the big picture in mind. They create a product for which there is a viable use, a company that supports scaling, and spend most of their time and money on marketing to keep finding customers who will buy it.
The winning framework
Three pivotal components of any business must be completed in order to get to the end of the rainbow.
I call it the POM Principle. “P” stands for product, “O” for operations and “M” for marketing.
Your product could be an app, a food, a technology or a service. All of the POM Principle must be set forth if you are expecting your venture to succeed.
In subsequent months in this space, I will break down the POM Principle concept by concept so that you have the framework to get your invention out of your brain and onto a shelf.
For the moment, a basic outline:
P for Product. This is all it requires to have a widget, a finished product or service ready for sale. It includes all of the sourcing, costing, prototypes, market research, competitive analysis and consumer demand for whatever you want to create.
Before you produce any product, however, you must do a profile of who you think will buy it. After all, if you have no customers, you have no business. Everything about the development of your product must be based on who that customer is and why he or she might want what you have to offer.
O for Operations. This starts with a distribution methodology, the way you intend to sell your product. Direct sales on the web? In a store? Through Amazon? Via direct response television or radio?
Is it an OEM product (original equipment manufactured), such as an Intel chip inside every Dell computer or B to B product? Is it a multi-level marketing concept? Will you wholesale only?
Operations are underpinned by money that allows you to, well, operate. How will you capitalize it? What systems can you create that will allow you to roll out, launch and support your customer base before you have a large staff to manage it? What people are needed to make it go? Human capital is key.
M for Marketing. Marketing is anything you do to get your product off the proverbial shelf and into the hands of someone who not only wants to buy it but will pull out his or her credit card quickly to have it.
Your marketing mix is a list of marketing activities that are chosen based on one thing only: your customer. If your consumer is younger than 15, chances are you might find him or her through school and might have to market to parents.
If your consumer rides buses, online ads will not be helpful—but buying bus bench ads will be the winning strategy. If your customer is a hard-hitting young entrepreneur who commutes via airplane, it’s possible you may advertise in airports or on airline apps.
So, there is a winning formula. If you need or want more, we’ll explore the “P” of product in more detail next month. Meanwhile, here’s to your success!
Spurred by worries about looking older, Trinidad native hits it big with skin care line
Andres Roban noticed wrinkles starting to form on his face. He bought 12 anti-aging products and tried them all, with no results. He dumped them all into a beaker and forgot about it. “A month later, I dipped into the muck, put it on my forehead and almost jumped out of my skin with joy about the results.”
“Once you’re an entrepreneur, you’re always an entrepreneur … the drive never disappears. It’s always there.”
BY ALYSON DUTCH
Days before 2020 arrived, a front-page Wall Street Journal story examined the power of the “negativity effect” as a fundamental aspect of our psychology. The article said that our brains’ “bad-news bias” is a built-in survival mechanism that evolved from our days as hunter-gatherers.
Though the story made resolution recommendations for a “low-bad diet,” this news was very validating for inventors—who, despite every adversity, are often motivated by fear nipping at their heels.
Most inventors bring things to life to solve a personal problem— whether it’s a fireman who needs a life-saving door wedge that doesn’t melt or an aging actress who created a bra that smooths back fat. In the case of Andres Roban, his fear of aging sprouted a revolutionary skincare line called Ounce of Nature. His all-natural, essential oils serum ignited a wellspring of fandom in Brooklyn in late 2019.
Paying his dues
The beauty line wasn’t his first stab at inventordom. Earlier, he brought to market a pillow that made breathing easier, a locker key/credit card-holding gym towel and a dating social site for Boomers. His wildly creative idea to attract people to his trade show booth by spritzing irresistible fragrances grew into a fifth invention—an air freshener line.
“I’ve never seen limits to what I can achieve, because I grew up in a place where everyone from political leaders to bankers looked like me,” the native Trinidadian entrepreneur explains. “So, when I got to New York and started bringing my ideas to life, it never occurred to me that I could be anything but successful.”
Roban’s immigration from the Caribbean to the largest, most competitive city in the United States was no cakewalk. Discouragement and even eviction from his home didn’t keep him down.
In Los Angeles, it’s no surprise that restaurant waitstaff are really budding actors in disguise holding down the fort with a steady job. Likewise, while bringing his dreams to reality in the Big Apple, Roban kept his bills paid for more than 20 years by working in the culinary industry.
This was more than a blessing for him: He met some of his most influential investors while on a restaurant floor. He learned the meaning of supreme tenacity and physical hard work, skills he uses every day now as a full-time entrepreneur.
“I can always right my wrongs,” the cheery Roban explains, “get up, dust myself off and keep grinding.”
True grit, and fortune
His greatest sensation is really the chart-topping skincare line, which he’s now rolled all his attention toward as it moves into the national landscape.
As every inventor knows, serendipity is one’s friend. Moreso than someone with a high-level education would understand, success rolls out precisely in the way it does.
Not many would have the audacity to consciously plan a move from a Caribbean island to one of the most sharky environments in the largest country in the world. It was a combination of a little luck and a lot of grit that spurred the young Roban to unpack his dreams in Brooklyn.
Now almost 40 (and looking younger, thanks to his skincare line), he runs his business with an open fist, accepting mind and kind heart. He admits that even today, scary things happen—from investors who have sudden changes of heart to his own heart palpitations about meeting payroll and rent obligations.
But it’s times like late at night when he sits in his artisan batch clean room—ensuring that his serums, hydrators, masques and cleansers are packaged perfectly—that calmness overcomes him.
“Fear is momentary,” he explains. “When it subsides and you realize that you’re OK, your employees have shown up, the shipping has gone out and the bills are paid, the elation is worth it all.”
Accidental formula
The inventor community knows the agony and the ecstasy of creation. Each member has muddled through personal journeys; the ones with the most tenacity, the ability to overcome obstacles, are often the ones who win.
Roban spent all those years toiling in a restaurant to make it happen, but it’s that quality that makes learning possible. His own great story about his fears, which hatched his skincare line, should serve as an inspiration to future inventors.
“I noticed wrinkles starting to form on my face,” he says with a laugh. “I went to the store and purchased 12 anti-aging products and tried them all. I followed the instructions. Nothing happened.
“Exasperated, I dumped them all into a beaker and forgot about it. A month later, I dipped into the muck, put it on my forehead and almost jumped out of my skin with joy about the results. It worked!
“I then went about the process of deconstructing all the natural ingredients in those products, which together numbered about 110. I sourced the best of each and put them together into my own formula.
“Quite by accident, I then came across a new blending technology that activated the mélange of essential oils to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles in only 30 minutes”—something that natural products usually don’t do.
In addition to the anti-aging serum, the skincare line includes these products available at ounceofnature.com: the Antioxidant Hydrating Cleansing Mousse; Green Tea Facial Toner; Wildflower Honey, Aloe and Oatmeal Anti-aging Face Mask; Hyaluronic Acid Facial Hydrator with Retinol, and Activated Charcoal Bar Soap.
Customers flow in
Another fluke, and a seeming state of commonality among inventors: What began as a need for Roban to find a formulating, packaging and fulfillment center turned into an anti-aging spa.
“I never expected to be in the service business,” he says with a shrug.
But when he went to sign lease papers, he discovered that the square footage and lease price included a street-level retail space that begged to be used. Today, he cannot stop the flow of Brooklyn beauty seekers at his door for treatments—and now his line of products.
Even more ironically, the spa attracted three famous hip-hop performers who sing the praises of his product. This started with a loitering patron in his foyer who turned out to be well connected in the entertainment business.
Roban says that “Once you’re an entrepreneur, you’re always an entrepreneur … the drive never disappears. It’s always there.
“When you go through real hardships, rock-bottom difficulties, any other troubles become insignificant. You realize you are unstoppable, and that any seeming calamity will be short-lived.”
Trademarked production process encourages reading, writing for at-risk kids
Accomplished TV veterans Terry Thoren and Ryan Cannon are using their talents to turn the magic of animation into a powerful EdTech tool. Governors, educators and STEM centers throughout the United States are jostling to find funds to get Wonder Media Story Maker® into their schools.
“Research shows that lessons taught to children by an animated character are retained 80 percent more than a lesson delivered by an adult.”
—Terry Thoren
BY ALYSON DUTCH
Primary school students from across the United States fidgeted, giggled and chatted nervously with teachers and parents as they sat inside a historic California site, preparing to witness some history of their own.
Inside the revered Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, the kids awaited the premiere of the first all-student-produced, animated, feature-length film in early August. It was their interpretation of perhaps the most popular movie of all time: “The Wizard of Oz,” which premiered at Grauman’s 80 years ago that month.
Most of the students had never set foot in Los Angeles, least of all this hallowed ground of American cinema.
Before the lights went down, Hollywood animation icon Terry Thoren and his partner in Wonder Media, LLC, Ryan Cannon, took the microphone.
The crowd cheered.
Thoren, the former CEO of Klasky Csupo, Inc.—the studio that incubated “The Simpsons” and produced “Rugrats” and “The Wild Thornberrys”—was elated and inspired. Cannon, an American Film Institute movie maker and content producer for “Sesame Street” and Dr. Seuss’s “The Cat in the Hat,” beamed.
The two who transformed the magic of animation into a powerful EdTech tool spoke to the students whose contributions had been stitched together into this national premiere. To make the movie a reality, students used Wonder Media Story Maker®, the production process created by Thoren and Cannon.
After the partners spoke, the “WonderGrove Wizard of Oz,” a collaboration of 24 schools across the United States, flickered onto the screen. As it rolled, various sections of the audience exploded into squeals of delight when their schools were recognized. They heard their own voices, saw their drawings, animation moves and witnessed—on the big screen—something that bonded them into a tight-knit community of storytellers.
This fraternity of kids, those who often don’t know how to express themselves, might not be doing so well with traditional classroom curriculum. But they are flourishing with this tool, used in 172 school districts in 24 states.
Governors, educators and STEM centers throughout the United States are jostling to find funds to get Story Maker into their schools because of the profound effect it’s having on student reading and writing skills. Students are learning to collaborate and complete authentic filmmaking tasks as a classroom antidote to the enormous amount of free time they spend on electronic devices outside of school.
Los Angeles-based Wonder Media—which says it offers “the best edutainment solutions for children”—is building a global team of storytellers to connect with children at risk. The company uses animated stories to address teen suicide, hunger, sex abuse prevention, emergency preparedness, social emotional learning, critical thinking, autism, nutrition, children with disabilities and those living in a home with an addicted adult.
At a time when the word influencer has become a hair-brained notion of self-celebrity, Thoren and Cannon have compelling influence under their wings: The Institute for Habits of Mind, the Betty Ford Center Children’s Program, the Hero in You Foundation, and Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts USA.
The Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center is also included; its animated lessons to teach sexual abuse prevention have been viewed by more than 150 million students worldwide. The lessons have been adopted by Education for Justice, an initiative of the United Nations; and The Boys Scouts of America, to name some of the prestigious global partners. The Sinatra center’s “Protect Yourself Rules” educational videos and lessons plans are now required viewing for every Cub Scout in the world!
This bountiful marriage of animation and education began when Thoren walked away from the red carpets of the entertainment industry to dedicate his life to a more meaningful purpose. One of his first projects was the application of animation for children with autism.
He underscores the importance of animation as an EdTech tool by explaining: “We discovered long ago how animation is a powerful teaching tool for young children.
“When children believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, they also believe that animated characters are real. As such, they form an emotional bond with animated characters and will mimic their behavior.
“Research shows that lessons taught to children by an animated character are retained 80 percent more than a lesson delivered by an adult.”
As often happens with the best ideas, Story Maker in schools happened by accident. Thoren said that after a school superintendent from Columbus, Mississippi, visited the Wonder Media studio, the school began experimenting with implementing an animation studio back home. The superintendent discovered that teaching at-risk students to make animated stories had a profound effect on their reading and writing skills, and dramatically decreased absenteeism.
People tend to say that Thoren is the brains of the company, Cannon the heart.
The film-loving Cannon was a childhood fan of “Star Wars,” “Batman” and “Rugrats.” He was overwhelmed by the emotion that Pixar was able to express through the first piece of digital computer animation called Luxor, Jr.
The father of two young daughters notes: “If you think about the stories that have been burned into your memory, they are full of strong emotions. Memory is directly tied to intense feelings, which is why I infuse each project I work on with both humor and heart—two strong, positive sensations.”
Cannon is inspired working with Thoren. The two are on a mission to effect change.
With more than 100 million views of their WonderGrove lessons on YouTube and on their subscription website, they are building a legacy around the idea of providing social-emotional learning and critical thinking skills to children before third grade.
Cannon says that creating true change is a formula: “care + confidence + contributions = change.”
“When kids care about a cause, are confident they can do something about it and are given a chance to contribute, change is bound to happen. Children are our future, so it’s fitting that Story Maker shows them how to start affecting their future now by teaching communication, teamwork and compromise.”
Cannon speaks of Thoren as a “gardener for good” as they spend each day planting seeds of hope for a better future for children.
When asked the standard but compelling question, “If you could invite anyone to dinner, who would it be?”, Thoren unequivocally says: the late John Wooden, legendary coach of the UCLA men’s basketball team. Wooden’s Pyramid of Success is a roadmap for excellence that he has followed religiously throughout his life.
The son of a hard-nosed, ultra-conservative father who was a Cornell Hall of Fame baseball coach, Thoren says he was tossed out of the family home at age 16. Feeling discouraged as a “free thinker” laid the foundation for who he is today. For 40 years, he has pushed the boundaries of animation, continually innovating its use to bring positive change on a large scale.
Thoren is tenacity to the 10th power. Unlike the not-so-healthy family experience he had, he rates the time with his three grown and incredibly adventuresome sons at the top of his list of happiness factors.
He makes the cozy town of Snohomish, Washington, his home, where he and his wife have nurtured a storybook farm into existence. He commutes to Los Angeles and steers the Wonder Media ship with staggering vigor, his ideas fueled by the grandeur of the Northwest.
Cannon is an Angeleno, where he and his wife are raising their daughters amid the hustle and bustle of the big city. He has his own family in mind when trying to tackle the toughest issues facing families today.
Cannon is an Angeleno, where he and his wife are raising their daughters amid the hustle and bustle of the big city. As a father trying to guide and protect his family in today’s world, he strives to equip families everywhere with better tools to combat the potential issues before us.
Together, the dynamic duo are fueling the intellect and hearts of youths everywhere, keen to pierce the veil of trauma that any child might experience—via a safety net of age-appropriate animated stories.